michael northam

topographies of experience

My work is based on my life-long fascination of ‘what makes an environment an experience.’ I have witnessed that the largest part of the environment that produces ‘experience’ is carried through the vehicle of sound. For over two decades, I have explored in a number of formats how sound is in fact an ‘experiential’ medium—transcending the frameworks of ‘music’ and entering into a deeper understanding of consciousness itself. Applying my research, observations and experiences I have developed a personal and intuitive process of what I call sonic ‘compost’-ing. A process of listening to multitudes of sounds (gathered from nature, ‘translated’ through instruments and found on the topography of objects), weaving these sonic materials through various process to finally arrange them in time and space. These sound works then generate living tapesteries of vibrating transforming textures intended to produce eidetic generative experiential sonic environments to heal, inspire and illuminate imaginal spaces within those who are willing to listen.

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‘FARNE’ - an eight-channel aleatoric composition designed for a fern greenhouse Presented May 12 through June 10, 2012 as part of group show PLANTS TALK 2012 (Including also the sound works of Rolf Julius and Miki Yui) at the Gewächshäusern des Botanischen Gartens Potsdam in Potsdam, Germany.
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